Judge monologue (Act 5) — Plays by August Strindberg, Third Series

[_Staring in front of himself as if lost in a dream_] Hush!--I had a dream! They were throwing stones at me--and yet I felt no pain--and then everything turned black and vacant until this moment--How long it may have lasted, I cannot tell--Now I am beginning to hear again--and to feel. It feels as if I were being carried--oh, how cold it is--they are washing me, I think--I am lying in something that has six sides like a cell in a honeycomb and that smells like a carpenter shop--I am being carried, and a bell is ringing--Wait! Now I am riding, but not in a street-car, although the bell is ringing all the time--Now I am sinking down, down, as if I were drowning--boom, boom, boom: three knocks on the roof--and then the lessons begin--the teacher is leading--and now the boys are singing--What can it be?--And then they are knocking on the roof again, incessantly--boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom--silence--it's over! [_He wakes up_] Where am I? I choke! It's so stuffy and close here!--Oh, it's you!--Where are we? Whose bust is that?